Sports drink Gatorade has agreed to pay $300,000 (£220,000) to the state of California over an app called Bolt! which featured a character based on Olympic medallist Usain Bolt.

In the game Bolt had to drink Gatorade to enhance his performance while water slowed him down.

Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the game made “misleading statements” about water.

The app was released in 2012 and is no longer available to download.

It was only available on Apple’s operating system and was downloaded 2.3 million times from 2012 to 2013.

It was briefly made available again in 2017.

Players were told to “keep your performance high by avoiding water” in a tutorial that accompanied the game, the Attorney General’s office said.

In a statement Gatorade’s parent company PepsiCo said the game was designed to “highlight the unique role and benefits of sports drinks in supporting athletic performance”.

“We recognise the role water plays in overall health and wellness,” it said, adding that it also markets bottled water brands.

Youth audience

Bolt! had an audience of mainly young people aged 13 to 24, the state added.

“Making misleading statements is a violation of California law. But making misleading statements aimed at our children is beyond unlawful, it’s morally wrong and a betrayal of trust.

“It’s what causes consumers to lose faith in the products they buy,” said Mr Becerra.

Almost half the settlement ($120,000) will be used to fund research and education into water consumption and nutrition in young people.

PepsiCo said in a 2014 statement that it does not advertise in spaces where children aged under 12 make up more than 35% of the audience.

Analyst Jack Kent, from IHS Markit, told the BBC the app store market had moved away from “branded entertainment” and games connected to a particular ad campaign.

“Mobile is a primary channel for reaching a youth audience, and the rise of branded apps highlighted that, but now there is more focus on reaching users through existing mobile social, entertainment and media platforms rather than just through dedicated apps,” he said.

The tightening of online censorship comes as China steps up security ahead of the Communist Party’s national congress which is held every five years.

“The run-up period to a gathering is normally a time of greater restrictions of all kinds to assure that the critical Party Congress is held under ideal social conditions and is not disrupted”, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, long-time advisor to China’s leaders and multinational corporations told the BBC.

However, he said it is not yet clear whether the restrictions will be relaxed as has happened after previous party congresses, adding that many analysts do not believe they will be.

WhatsApp has declined to comment on the latest clampdown.

Image copyrightGetty Images

Image caption
WeChat is the most popular messaging service in China

Analysis – Stephen McDonell, BBC China correspondent, Beijing

Last week word started spreading around other platforms… “Is WhatsApp blocked?”

The replies would come in: “You need to use a VPN”. Then the VPNs were being blocked.

Welcome to online China in the run-up to the Communist Party Congress.

Taking out WhatsApp has no impact on most Chinese people. They don’t use it. The unrivalled king of cyberspace in this country is WeChat (or, in Chinese, Weixin 微信)

You would really struggle to find somebody here not using WeChat to send messages, share photos, swap locations, flirt, read news and pay for pretty much everything. This all-encompassing app at the centre of people’s lives is available for the Communist Party to spy on the entire population.

WhatsApp is not – at least not to the same extent.

So, during this sensitive time leading up to the once-in-five-years Party Congress, those with responsibility for censoring social media are nervous.

They worry that somebody may use an app beyond their complete control to, for example, organise a protest or post a funny photo of President Xi Jinping and for this to somehow go under their radar.

Tech crackdown

WhatsApp provides end-to-end encryption which ensures only the sender and recipient can view the content of messages.

It also prevents Facebook from knowing what is said in any text, voice and video conversation being communicated on WhatsApp.

“China has shown little tolerance to encryption especially on platforms that can be used to share materials or potential propaganda,” Bill Taylor-Mountford, Asia Pacific vice president for LogRhythm told the BBC.

The latest disruption to WhatsApp appears to be part of a broader crackdown on the internet and online content in China.

On Monday, China’s cyber watchdog handed down maximum penalties to some of the country’s top technology firms including Tencent, Baidu and Weibo for failing to properly censor online content.

The penalties were imposed for failing to remove fake news and pornography, as well as content that authorities said “incites ethic tension” and “threatens social order”.

Email addresses

“Many people expect their email address to be in the public domain,” he said.

“But what most people have done when dealing with confidential matters is they have a second address – and it looks like it is that one that may have been let out here.

“Is it immediately going to be mean people’s data will be breached? Not really – but the secondary, more confidential email addresses mean phishing can become much more sophisticated.”

Phishing is an attempt by criminals to get valuable information, such as banking login details, by pretending to be emailing from an official source.

It is more likely to succeed if it is sent to an address that regularly receives correspondence from the real organisation.

Media captionTechnology explained: What is phishing?

Deloitte said it had reviewed the email platform accessed and had determined there had been “no disruption” to the work of its clients.

However, Tony Pepper, chief executive of data security company Egress, said that compromised email servers could be full of sensitive information.

“This is why multi-factor access control such as two-factor authentication is important, especially for administrators,” he said.

“It makes it much harder to gain illicit access in the first place, and provides a warning if someone is trying to log in without your knowledge.”

Two-factor authentication involves providing extra information before logging in – for example, an access code sent by text message.

Mr Pepper added that individual emails should also be encrypted.

In a statement, Deloitte said it had informed government authorities and regulators of the breach.

“Deloitte remains deeply committed to ensuring that its cyber-security defences are best in class, to investing heavily in protecting confidential information and to continually reviewing and enhancing cyber-security,” it said.

‘Worst position’

Mr Anderson said: “The worst position for this country to be in and the worst position for customers is that we get huge enthusiasm, people rushing out to buy electric cars because the price has come down, and then we can’t allow people to plug them in because we haven’t invested in the infrastructure.

“So one of the things we’re looking at now is how we plan what has to happen to the distribution system.”

The estimate of a 20%-30% increase in demand for electricity comes after years of gradually declining power use, much of that due to growing energy efficiency and the closure of older, energy-intensive industries.

Image copyrightGetty Images

At the same time, old power stations – including Scottish Power’s coal-burning plants at Longannet in Fife and Cockenzie in East Lothian – have been closed down.

The added challenge of cars is the change in technology from an eight-hour overnight charge to a rapid charge of 15 to 20 minutes.

If several car owners on a residential street plug those in at the same time, the system could not cope.

Mr Anderson said: “The system that takes the wires into the house, down the street, to local businesses – how do we make sure it can cope with that level of demand? It’ll take a long time to plan and deliver.”

‘Let’s keep going’

Heating is the next frontier in the energy revolution, which has barely begun. In place of gas and oil-fired boilers in each home, electric central heating can be powered by renewable generation.

However, it is likely to require not only removal of a boiler, but the replacement of radiators and hot water heating pipes throughout a home.

“We have been able to develop these projects faster and faster, and to deliver them more efficiently, at much lower cost.

“Keep going, because that will bring costs down and make us more efficient for the future.

“If you stop now, the technology development stops, the innovation stops: the new jobs, the new roles, they all stop. You stop that for two or three years, and trying to restart it becomes more difficult and more expensive.”

Most of the recent onshore wind developments have been in Scotland, focused on the south west.

The UK government has allowed much less onshore wind developing, in response to anti-turbine campaigners.

It has also left onshore wind out of the auctions which offer generators a minimum price for their energy.

These auctions have helped drive down the cost of renewable power, with offshore wind nearly halving in price.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan says Uber has bought “unfair pressure” on Transport for London (TfL), with an “army” of PR experts and lawyers.

The Mayor says Uber has made “aggressive” threats about taking TfL to court.

On Friday, TfL denied it a new licence to operate in London, citing concerns over public safety and security.

However, Uber says it has followed TfL rules and works closely with the Metropolitan Police.

Uber said in a series of tweets on Sunday that it would challenge the TfL decision “in the courts to defend the livelihoods of drivers and the consumer choice of millions of Londoners who use Uber”.

“Drivers who use Uber in London are licensed by TfL and have been through the same enhanced DBS [Disclosure and Barring Service] background checks as black cab drivers.

“We have always followed TfL rules on reporting serious incidents, with a dedicated team that works closely with the Metropolitan Police.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is also chairman of TfL, defended the organisation: “What you can’t do, is have a situation where unfair pressure is brought on a quasi-judicial body where there are officials working incredibly hard.

“I appreciate Uber has an army of PR experts, I appreciate Uber has an army of lawyers – they’ve also made aggressive threats about taking us to court.”

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It’s still not clear what the attack code does on compromised machines

Hackers who booby-trapped widely used security software also used their malware to infiltrate machines at tech firms, suggests analysis.

Evidence that other companies had been compromised came to light as Cisco researchers probed how attackers got at the popular CCleaner programme.

Millions of people downloaded a Windows version that hackers had laced with malicious code.

Cisco said the attackers were seeking valuable intellectual property.

Cleaning up

Last week CCleaner creator Piriform revealed that attackers had managed to place a hijacked copy of version 5.33 that works on Windows on some download servers. The booby-trapped code was available for about a month between August and September,

Millions of people downloaded the compromised version of CCleaner but damage was limited because whoever created it had not updated it to include elements that could scan machines and steal data.

However, Cisco said its analysis suggested that attackers had taken that extra step on machines at tech firms they had managed to infiltrate.

Hi-tech giants including Cisco, Intel, Google, Samsung and Microsoft were among the 20 or so companies believed to have been hit in this way.

“These new findings raise our level of concern about these events, as elements of our research point towards a possible unknown, sophisticated actor,” wrote the Cisco researchers.

Cisco said it was likely that a lot of other firms had been hit by whoever was behind the sophisticated and wide-ranging attack.

It recommended that anyone cleaning up after finding they had been compromised restore machines from backup as it was not clear what other code the attackers had installed on those computers. It said it was still analysing the code to find out exactly what it did.

Cisco said it was not yet clear who carried out the sophisticated attack on CCleaner and the other technology firms.

It has 21 days to appeal against TfL’s decision and can continue to operate while any appeals are ongoing.

Some 3.5 million passengers and 40,000 drivers use the Uber app in London.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “I fully support TfL’s decision – it would be wrong if TfL continued to license Uber if there is any way that this could pose a threat to Londoners’ safety and security.”

Image copyrightPA

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Taxi drivers have been campaigning against Uber, such as engaging in this “go slow” protest in 2014

Fred Jones, head of cities for Uber across the UK and Ireland, told the BBC Uber drivers had to pass the same safety checks as black cab and mini cab drivers in London.

There had been growing speculation that the app could be banned from London.

Opponents of the firm claim it causes gridlocked roads and does not do enough to regulate its drivers.

But one driver with Uber in London said: “I don’t think it is a fair decision. Uber offers a flexible schedule, and a weekly income.”

Uber controversies

Chief executive Travis Kalanick, who helped found the company in 2009, resigned in July following a series of scandals and criticism of his management style

In June, 20 staff were sacked after a law firm investigated specific complaints made to the company about sexual harassment, bullying, and retaliation for reporting problems

A few months later Uber announced it would offer English courses, financial advice and introduce an appeals panel for its UK workers after facing criticism over lack of support and rights for its drivers

Image caption
Some 3.5 million passengers and 40,000 drivers use the Uber app in London

Uber’s general manager in London Tom Elvidge said: “By wanting to ban our app from the capital, Transport for London and the mayor have caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice.

“If this decision stands, it will put more than 40,000 licensed drivers out of work and deprive Londoners of a convenient and affordable form of transport.

“To defend the livelihoods of all those drivers, and the consumer choice of millions of Londoners who use our app, we intend to immediately challenge this in the courts.”

He said Uber operated in more than 600 cities around the world, including more than 40 towns and cities in the UK.

Analysis: From BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones

Throughout its short, tempestuous life, Uber has clashed with regulators around the world – and more often than not it has come out on top.

Its tactic has often been to arrive in a city, break a few rules, and then apologise when it’s rapped over the knuckles. Some regulators have backed down, others have run the company out of town.

In London, despite protests from angry taxi drivers, the company has had a relatively easy ride until now.

But a wave of bad publicity about its corporate culture, its lax attitude to checks on its drivers and its treatment of this freelance army seems to have spurred TfL into action.

Make no mistake, Uber will use every legal avenue to fight this ban. It will argue that consumers, in the shape of the millions of mainly young Londoners who rely on its service, will be seriously let down if it can no longer operate.

But the courts will have to balance that with the serious concerns about public safety raised by TfL.

On social media, a fierce debate has broken out over the decision.

An online petition launched by Uber urging Sadiq Khan to reverse the decision to strip its London licence has been signed by tens of thousands of people in the space of a few hours.

Twitter user @Gabbysalaza_ said that she was “annoyed” at the decision as Uber allowed to her to get out of “uncomfy” situations if out at night.